Friday, May 29, 2009

This One Is For The Healers Out There

Last night was one of those nights when I wanted to play but not grind. I completed my two Wyrmrest dailies and leveled my tailoring to 430 and picked up some epic tailoring patterns. I also decided to go with Jewelcrafting as a 2nd profession. I leveled that to about 25. One of my guildies wanted to go into Anul Nerub and asked if I could heal. I agreed. He is 72 and with me being 74 I figured that we would be okay. It took awhile to a group put together but we managed to do it while I was completing my dailies. The tank ended up being a lvl 70 and I was mildly concerned but we headed in for adventure. We went about 3 inches before the whole group was wiped. The tank said sorry for aggroing everything in sight and said he would do better. We entered the first chamber and before I knew it we had about 3,000 mobs on us. I kept getting webbed so I couldn't heal and the tank would not follow the unwritten rule of 'slow and steady', so a 2nd wipe. We went in a 3rd time and the tank that promise 'to go slow' didn't. I was webbed about 3 times and noone was watching out for me. I kept seeing tells 'lesser heal', 'heal me', 'what are you doing?'. After the 3rd wipe things were quiet and I could tell the group was grumpy. We hadn't gotten anywhere near the first boss and the group wiped 3 times. The tank started venting at me a bit when I finally had enough and piped up. I told him that he needed to go slow because in my opinion he was a little to low to be in there in the first place. I also told him that it was obvious that I was pulling the aggro with every 'greater heal' because I kept getting webbed which meant I couldn't heal. Now maybe I need to get a bit more knowledgeable on my healing since I don't do it full time but I'm not 3 wipes before the first boss bad. The group ended up falling apart and leaving me the feeling that maybe I'm not cut out to be a full time healer. I've healed parties before but maybe 10 times before total. I'm dps - not heals. I can off-heal but I don't want to full time heal. I just know me. That's not what I want to do. I want to melt, not restore. I'm realistic though in thinking that I'll need to heal from time to time to get in groups to finish quests and gear up. I've got a whole new respect for those of you out there that heal full time. It is such a thankless job and you get blammed quickly for any group issues or wipes. You have to dispell, heal, uncurse, cure disease etc. as well as look out for yourself so you don't die. Stressful. Any healers out there with suggestions on how to get a heal rotation down? Any suggestions would be very appreciated. What ever happened to crowd control? We used to use seduce, sheep, shackle undead, etc. to get through instances. Now it seems that tanks aggro everything in sight and expect the dps and healers to compensate and blow everthing down as fast as possible. It's not strategy, it's a dps race.

1 comment:

  1. The downside to healing is that there is no rotation. You react as best as you can and try to anticipate when possible.
    The thing is, tanks need to do their part as well. If they aren't equipped or specced to mitigate damage, then there ain't much you can do. I tried to heal Halls of Lightning with a Death Knight tank who was DPS specced. (This was before dual spec, and I had paid to respec to Holy) One hit would knock out 75% of his health. Even if I started casting Greater Heal before the first hit landed, he would die before I could get a second Greater Heal downrange.
    I too, am a "slow and steady wins the race" type of healer. I'm all for AoE tanking, but the tank needs to know how to do it. Now that AoE Tanking is the hip thing, too many tanks seem to just want to pull everything and then count on unlimited heals while DPS burns everything down. That is an epic BoP recipe for disaster.
    The one thing I've learned about PUGs is that you need to talk to everyone before the fight starts. And inspect your tanks. Once they're in the party, take a look at their talents. If they look like a DPS spec, ask them. If you think the party is a no-go, then say your farewells and take your leave. I've watched DPS quit a party that they thought was bad, and DPSers are a dime a dozen. You're the healer. You are responsible for keeping them alive. Sometimes the best way to do that is to not let them walk into a bloodbath from the start.

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